In 1991, a billion-dollar experiment took place, designed to see if humans could survive in an artificial earth inside a giant glass dome that would eventually be built on other planets. Years was spent building Biosphere 2 in the USA, and inside was an ocean with actual tides and waves, a rainforest, a desert, vast wetlands, a farm with crops, animals, housing and laboratories. ‘Rain’ could even be switched on and off. Eight Humans lived inside it for TWO YEARS. So why has hardly anybody heard of it? Because it was a disaster, none of it worked, and they nearly died. Turns out, despite sounding impressive, this experiment wasn’t run by NASA or even scientists, it was run by a bunch of hippies from a cult-like experimental theatre group who had no clue what they were doing, but had duped a billionaire into giving them a lot of money.

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The documentary Spaceship Earth (in Aus you can rent or buy it on YouTube or Amazon Prime): https://youtu.be/ySQU8kzmZBo

The current Biosphere 2 website (run by the University of Arizona): https://biosphere2.org/

NY Times article - ‘The Lost History of One of the World’s Strangest Science Experiments’ (2019):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html

Guardian article: ‘Eight Go Mad In Arizona: How a lockdown experiment went horribly wrong’ (2020)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/13/spaceship-earth-arizona-biosphere-2-lockdownhttps://www.history.com/.amp/news/biosphere-2-spaceship-earth

Awesome footage from inside: https://www.pbs.org/video/good-stuff-nature-biosphere/https://youtu.be/eZcLeF4XM1I

You can visit! https://news.arizona.edu/biosphere-2

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